Freedom of Assembly/Protest Rights

People angry at the sorry state of the world and looking to build a better one go out and protest. Yet, across the country when people gathered to protest police violence, they themselves were met with police violence. Donald Trump has responded with a seemingly never ending stream of inflammatory tweets. On Monday, in a demagogic speech, he openly spoke of using the military on US soil against US citizens. How does Mr. Trump justify his actions? He’s decided to claim that what the nation is is seeing is preplanned, carefully orchestrated, professionally managed protests and violence. The instigator? Antifa.

Over the last several days, we have seen shocking images of police violence against protesters. We have heard politicians at all levels of government, and from both sides of the aisle, speak of “outside agitators,” an age old lie told to delegitimize social movements, downplay rightful anger, and greenlight repression. These are dark and trying times. But it is precisely because of dark and trying times that we at Defending Rights & Dissent fight for the right to protest and engage in collective action aimed at building a more just world.

Following nationwide protests against pipelines, industry-backed legislation has been passed to crack down on protestors. 17 states have had bills criminalizing protests at pipelines with 7 states having passed bills. The situation escalated when Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao proposed

Throughout the states that saw major teacher strikes, retaliation has come in the form of threatening freedom of speech, assembly, and association. The goal of many of the laws are not only to make striking illegal, but to use the very communities that teachers struck for as political fodder.

Both Immigrations and Custom Enforcement (ICE) and Custom and Border Patrol (CBP) are engaged in monitoring and tracking First Amendment protected activity.Monitoring of political speech is inherently chilling. It is also outside the jurisdiction of both ICE and CBP.

The Athens, Ohio City Council passed a resolution against a Critical Infrastructure bill (SB250) being considered by the state legislature in 2018. ﻿ Direct link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B03viEiWh0qWaHRKNm1JTjd4ZkxvTkhkTktxVjFoTEJrT1BV Original document name: Athens Ohio Resolution Against SB 250.pdf [wpv-post-taxonomy type=”resource-type”], [wpv-post-taxonomy type=”geo”], [wpv-post-taxonomy

The National Park Service is considering new regulation that would severely curtail the right to protest. Reactions to these new regulations have been overwhelming. The comment period closed on October 15. We don't yet know the total number of comments received, but so far the NPS has counted over 71,000 comments. This count is still growing.

If a new set regulations passes, activists will face serious hurdles in organizing protests on the National Mall or at the White House, potentially making such demonstrations a thing of the past. We need your help in defending the right to protest. The National Park Service is asking for comments on their proposed regulations and they need to hear from. You have until October 15 to submit them.